Heritage

Ace was hovering in midair in the hall he'd chosen to train in, concentrating hard on controlling his body temperature and the range of the heat he radiated –which was the really hard part– when he gradually became aware that he was being watched. Looking around, he immediately saw that Hawk-Eyes was standing in the open doorway and eyeing him critically. Ace unfolded his legs and dropped to the floor, taking care not to scorch the stone slabs.

"Spadille," Mihawk said coolly, "I trust you will not be engaging once more in the kind of thoughtless foolishness that led to your arrest?"

Ace winced. He had deserved that. "I'm not going to leave Fox alone while she's pregnant," he promised, "not if I can help it. Blackbeard can wait and now I'm not the only person who wants his head on a platter; I'm not even the first person in line." The first person in line was Tempest, who for all her calm pleasantry believed vengeance should be thorough and properly thought-out with the victim fully aware of the reason for their plight even as their world crumbled around them. By the time she was through with Teach he might welcome death in order to get away from her.

"And after the child is born?"

Ace scowled. "She was my best friend before this happened and even if things hadn't changed I'd never abandon her when she needed help. Raising her kid is going to cut in on everything else she does and I'm going to make sure no-one tries to take advantage while she's distracted."

"You are unsure of your abilities, poorly trained and barely aware of your limits," Mihawk noted with brutal accuracy. "How could you possibly protect her when you can barely care for yourself?"

The flame Logia gritted his teeth, making sure his power remained under his skin. Losing control now would just prove the swordsman right. "I know all that," he spat, "but I'm working on it. The only way anyone's going to try to hurt Fox is by going through me first."

"Will you always be at her side?"

Ace scowled. "No; she doesn't want me to be. She's not weak and doesn't need me to treat her like she's made of glass. But I will be there so that if she does need me I can help." He glared at the father of his lover. "That is what family is for."

Mihawk frowned. "You consider her family," he mused.

Ace shrugged, scratching his head. "We're practically married so yeah. Her mother's already made it very clear she considers me a son-in-law even if we never make it official." Meeting Pearl had been scary: the mermaid had an intensity to her that reminded him of Pops in a bad mood. He'd barely been able to do more than stand his ground and agree to her demands.

Mihawk made a slightly amused sound in his throat. "Why do you call her Fox when you know her name is Lisska?"

A very tricky question. "It's what she introduced herself to me as," Ace said carefully, "and everyone else on the Moby Dick called her that too, even Marco. When I did find out her name she asked me to go on calling her Fox, so I thought she just liked the nickname better."

"And now?"

Ace frowned in thought. Tricky. "She sees herself as Fox, so that's what I call her. Lisska is the daughter of Dracule Mihawk and Silvers Pearl, but Fox is the woman and assassin she's become." He paused, Hawk-Eyes' stunned expression taking him by surprise. "What?"

"Silvers Pearl?" Mihawk repeated.

"Yeah. You didn't know?" Ace did his best not to smile; it wasn't –okay, it was hilarious how shocked the World's Greatest Swordsman looked by the news. But that was no reason to make fun.

"She never mentioned it," Mihawk said a little bemusedly.

"Mermaids don't," Ace commiserated. "Sometimes I entertain myself by wondering exactly how many kids Marco's got that he doesn't know about." Marco was very responsible and serious on board ship but he was a real player off it and loved mermaids even more than the average pirate. The mermaids loved him back for some reason, so every time the Moby Dick had stopped by Fishman Island Marco had rarely come back to the ship to sleep, if at all. There were always at least two seeing him off when it was time to leave again, usually four or five and sometimes more.

Mihawk actually smirked. "He has at least three daughters that I am certain of," the swordsman said with a hint of humour in his tone, "and they are currently fourteen years of age. He likely has more that are older and younger than that."

Ace contemplated for a moment how Marco would react if someone told him he had three teenage daughters. Teenage mermaid daughters: young, pretty, flirty and scantily clad. The phrase 'running around like a headless chicken' came to mind.

"How do you know about those three?" Ace had to ask.

"I met Marco when I went to fetch Lisska from her babysitters' apartment on Fishman Island one morning upon learning her mother was busy," Mihawk said blandly. "He was cooking breakfast and telling my daughter a story about something someone on his crew had once done. Lisska was six; her three babysitters were in their early twenties and not in evidence."

Ace choked slightly at that as a first impression. Yeah, all the Whitebeard Pirates knew Marco loved women, but three mermaids? All at once? With a kid asleep in the same house? Damn. "So the missing babysitters all wound up pregnant?" he guessed.

"Two of them did," Mihawk said dryly. "One of them had twins; Lisska was thrilled."

Twin teenage mermaids. Marco would have kittens.

Ace returned to his thoughts of Marco's reaction to finding out he had teenage daughters three days later when he and Fox had left Kuraigana Island to peruse more safehouses and later attend her next check-up with Trafalgar Law.

"Fox?"

"Yes?" his lover replied, not looking up from the top she was making. Now she had started to show Fox had decided to make herself some clothes that would fit properly as she continued increasing.

"Do you know how many kids Marco has on Fishman?"

She glanced up at him. "Is that idle curiosity speaking?"

"Um, yeah?" Ace admitted.

"Here," she shoved a large coil of rope at him. "Knot yourself a new hammock while we talk."

Ace accepted the rope and set about the mindless task of turning, knotting and shaping that he could probably do with his eyes closed.

"You asked about Marco," Fox said, her eyes back on her work. "I've known him since I was six. I'm not entirely certain of the number or identity of those of his offspring around my age or more than ten years younger than me, but I do know that in the three years I lived on Fishman he visited five times after our first meeting. On one of those later occasions Jinbe was looking after me, but on the other four my mother had left me with babysitters. On each of those four occasions Marco hunted me down to catch up, play games and have fun, and with the benefit of hindsight I can now say with certainty that he seduced every single one of my babysitters that he met. Considering my mother had me being looked after by between three and seven different mermaids whenever she wasn't there, that's a lot of conquests."

Ace grunted an acknowledgement, tightening a knot. It was a lot of women.

"Of course my babysitters were likely as eager to bed him as he was to bed them, but that's not relevant really," Fox continued. "Four times he visited me, four times he seduced my babysitters, not including the first time. Only once –the time I'd been left with four mermaids in their late teens– did none of the babysitters wind up pregnant. On all the other occasions at least two of them had a baby nine months later; that includes the first meeting, incidentally."

Ace whistled. "Damn. Is he just unlucky or did the mermaids do it on purpose?"

Fox smirked. "Smart Kajin! Do you know the mermaid-to-merman gender ratio?"

"No?"

"It's five to one; five mermaids to every merman. The fishman-to-woman ration is two to one but there are less of them anyway, so even then it doesn't balance out. For every married mermaid there are two or three who can't simply because there aren't that many males to go around. So what do those single mermaids do if they want to have children?"

Everything fell into place in Ace' mind. "They sleep with a passing pirate and hope they get lucky?"

"Well, there's a bit more thought and care in the selection process than that, but basically," Fox agreed. "Mermaids who want children often offer to babysit other mermaids' kids for experience and to stave off the yearning, so you can imagine how delighted they were to meet a strong, good-looking pirate who was good with kids and perfectly willing to seduce them."

Ace sniggered. Poor, ignorant Marco had been shamelessly taken advantage of. "How many then?"

Fox frowned. "Two pregnant the first time and three daughters between them: fraternal twins and a single. Four the second time: three girls and a boy. None the third time as I was with younger girls who took steps to prevent pregnancy, being in the experimental stage rather than wanting to settle down; I know he was the first man at least two of them had ever had sex with. Fourth time I was with Jinbe so I have no idea who he stayed the night with. Fifth time three pregnancies, five babies: identical twin girls, fraternal twins –a girl and a boy– and another girl."

Ace did some quick mental arithmetic. "So Marco has at least twelve kids, probably a whole lot more," he said, not sure if he should be awed or worried. "That's a lot of kids."

"After they realised Marco would visit me whenever Whitebeard was on the island my mother got a lot more people willing to babysit me," Fox said dryly. "It took me a while to make the connection."

Ace laughed. Marco had been suckered into playing stud by a bunch of mermaids! "Is he ever going to find out?"

"If he asks," Fox said lightly, her own amusement clear. "I'm sure you've noticed that quite a lot of the mermaids your age and younger are blonde, strawberry blonde or pink-haired."

The flame Logia had to put aside his work as he was laughing too hard to continue it. "Please," he gasped eventually, "please Limpet, please say I can be there if he does ask and you tell him!"

"If I am the person he asks, Kajin, you are free to eavesdrop if you aren't there in person," Fox said equably, her needle dancing along a seam. "He is more likely to ask Tempest though, as she is the mermaid he will be seeing the most of."

"Can you ask her to warn you and maybe let you come along?" Ace begged. "Please Kitsune-koi?"

Fox hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I could, since it does involve me peripherally and I know some of them quite well," she mused, "but it depends if he ever actually asks and, if he does, when said request occurs. I'll mention my interest to her and see how it goes."

"You want to see his face too, don't you?" Ace challenged her, picking up the rope again.

"Oh yes," Fox admitted candidly. "I also want to see the rest of your crew's faces when they realise the implications."

Ace cackled evilly. He'd always been careful to make sure his mermaid conquests knew that he actually wanted to know if they wound up pregnant and had gone out of his way to pick the girls who didn't want kids yet. But then again, he'd been forewarned by Spitfire. Not that he'd ever shared that warning with his brothers, of course; where was the fun in that?

The implications of getting involved with mermaids.